Friday, 31 March 2017

I made two little strips for my daughter's choker. To be honest, I was disappointed she only wanted something so small! I was looking forward to making her something a bit more complex and intricate. Oh well...

(I might still make her a sneaky wider one... and present her with the choice...)

There's a black one and a navy blue one as she wasn't sure which dress she'd wear yet. And some ribbon to tie it on.

And I forgot to show my son's blanket which I finished recently. This was a while in the making as he wanted a full bed-size blanket! No colour scheme for him, he just wanted all and every colour, no order, just... COLOURFUL!

I enjoyed making it for him and to be honest, I was delighted he was so keen to have one of my crocheted blankets. He was using it even before it was finished!

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

I'm making progress on the green doily and have started on the second round of medallions. I ended up doing regular fs/bs tatting rather than Jan's method as it seemed to me his way of starting with a full stitch on the back side was throwing the stitch count unless there is still something that is escaping me? Anyway, here's where I'm at so far.

I put it to one side temporarily when my daughter said she'd like a black choker to wear to a ball next week. I showed her several edgings and she said she wanted really narrow and chose this very simple flower one which won't take long to whip up. I might make her another too in case she decides, when she tries it on, that a bit wider might be nice too.

Saturday, 18 March 2017

you take the time to read the pattern correctly! I decide to re-do the Jan Stawasz motif in size 20 thread and find that the difference in size is not massive... but my tatting enjoyment is greatly improved! So I think I will have to go with size 20 thread if I decide to go with this project. I don't have any ecru at the moment so will have to order some.

When re-tatting it, I decided to have another go at tackling Jan's method of tatting. It's really like front-side/back-side tatting except that he doesn't start a chain on the back side with the 2nd half of a double-stitch as you would but rather he starts with a full stitch as on the front-side except that he adds a half stitch before making picots so that they fall between two half-stitches (back side) rather than between two full stitches (front side). I was finding it confusing before to read his pattern with the little dots but I get it now. It's not that difficult really, I don't know why I was finding it so confusing before!

Anyway, here is a second take at the motif, on the right, in size 20 thread, done with Jan Stawasz's method of tatting. I also noticed that he doesn't count the join as a half stitch so I did that like him too, starting with a full stitch after each join. I scanned the new motif next to the first purple one, for comparative purposes.

When paying proper attention to the pattern (hence title of this post), I realised I did not have the right number of picots on my chains on the first motif (some have 7 and some have 9 with different spacings).

Now I look at the scan, the motif on the right rather does look ecru, doesn't it? But in reality it is more of a light brown. I think I will still order some ecru. You always need ecru in your stash anyway, don't you think?

Friday, 17 March 2017

Debating whether to tackle another big piece... This is a sample to try it out. It's by Jan Stawasz. This is tatted in size 10 as Jan seems to have tatted most of his pieces in that size. I'm still not sure I enjoy working with size 10 though... and it's one instance where my beloved Aeros are not perfect because you need to refill so often when using size 10 as the Aero bobbin doesn't hold enough thread in that size.

I wouldn't use that dark colour anyway. I might go for ecru again for a large piece. The chains feel a tad short to me but I don't know how it would affect the overall design if I added an extra two stitches to the chains...

Tuesday, 14 March 2017

I completed this edging some time ago... but never got around to attaching it to a handkerchief! Here it is, finished at last. This edging is a vintage pattern which can be found in many old publications (with slightly different stitch counts). I provide a version on my patterns page which includes a corner I designed to compliment the edging.

I have tatted this edging on more than one occasion. I particularly like it with a variegated thread for the flowers.

Green Doily is a design by Jan Stawasz

This time I did a row of crochet around the handkerchief before whip-stitching the edging to the crochet row.

16.03.17 - Update: Thanks to Kathy, I found the blogpost which showed two other versions of this edging. There is one more which I can't find. So I've made this edging at least four times.

And I just had to share with you the gorgeous blooming trees at the end of our street. I love this time of year when nature bursts into action and I'm particularly fond of these flowering trees. I don't even know what they are... I need to find out.

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

Ok, two-socks-one-inside-the-other... the idea is clever. I really had to try it. I did try it. I made it to the heel and I started work on the heel. It's "do-able" and I now understand how it works BUT, to be honest, I wasn't enjoying it. You have to concentrate all the time to make sure you don't mix any stitches at the risk of joining your socks together and I also found that tension was quite a bit looser, well, not looser really but because your stitches are spaced apart by another stitch, it results in quite a different knitted fabric. I didn't like it for socks. I felt it lacked the usual "bounce" of my regular knitting.

So I'm sorry, I didn't take a photo of how far I got because all of a sudden I decided to frog back nearly to the beginning and knit them again two-at-a-time but side by side instead as I prefer to do. Apologies to Jane who wanted a verdict on the method but I didn't make it to the end! I guess the verdict is that, for me, it wasn't worth the extra effort. :-)

These are not particularly pretty socks, I just wanted to use leftover wool. I added a small cable and a decorative diamond in the centre of the cream part to keep it a bit interesting.

I ran out of the plain blue as I got to the ankle so I carried on with

other leftover wool. As I said, not really pretty

but they will be functional, keep my feet warm,

and use up all the little bits of wool.

I can't make up my mind yet on my favourite heel.

These are short-row heels though I also like knitting gussets and flaps.

And lastly, back to this small tatted piece which needs a centre.

I tried it with fabric but I'm not happy with the result.

With such a small circle, it's really difficult to get it looking really round.

I tried my best to fold it neatly down and hand sewed it before stitching it with the machine...